Two, or dual-sided direct thermal printing of documents such as transaction documents and receipts is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,784,906 and 6,759,366, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein. In dual-sided direct thermal printing, a two-sided thermal printer is configured to allow concurrent printing on both sides of thermal media moving along a feed path through the printer. In such a printer a direct thermal print head is disposed on each side of the media along the feed path. In operation each thermal print head faces an opposing platen across the media from the respective print head.
In direct thermal printing, a print head selectively applies heat to paper or other media comprising a substrate with a thermally sensitive coating. The coating changes color when heat is applied, by which “printing” is provided on the coated substrate. For dual-sided direct thermal printing, the media substrate may be coated on both sides.
Today, components for radio frequency identification (‘RFID”) devices are being integrated into many types of media, such as labels, tickets, and cards. This RFID enabled media is typically pre-printed on one or both sides, and if thermal or thermal transfer printing occurs, it is printed on one side only. This limits the ability to “print on demand” useful or required information on RFID enabled media.